


we’ll make a home from this stolen wood

by ladyknope



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6179812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknope/pseuds/ladyknope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Single Dad Ben AU/FLUFF</p>
            </blockquote>





	we’ll make a home from this stolen wood

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on livejournal last year :P

Ben Wyatt finds a lot of things about fatherhood challenging, but heads above everything else is the French braid.

Sure there’s the sleepless nights, the changing poopy diapers, the food stains that always seem to appear on his shirt no matter how carefully he feeds her. But those things also come with kissing tears away, gummy-mouth laughs, and sweet snuggles that he gets to think about when he’s having a bad day. Besides, Samantha’s almost four now and the things most of his childless friends list as reasons not to have kids he doesn’t really mind- especially when the alternative is not having her in his life at all.

But that doesn’t stop him from hating the French braid.

Tomorrow is his daughter’s first day at her new preschool and Ben’s first day at Pawnee City Hall. Ben always knew he wanted to move away from Patridge eventually, so when his old coworker Chris called him with a job “literally made just for you, Ben Wyatt!” he decided to take the leap (plus it has always been hard for him to say no to Chris). And while a normal person would probably be going to bed early or at least brushing up on assistant city manager duties and city code, Ben is watching his tenth video tutorial and carding his fingers through one of Samantha’s older dolls- kind of like a crazy murderer in one of those Lifetime movies his mom likes to watch.

He just hopes he can still do this in the morning.

/

A week later and Ben decides it probably didn’t matter that he turned his attention away from the heavy practice manuals and toward debates on clear versus colored elastics because he never would have been caught-up before he started anyway. It’s the Friday of his first week and the fifth night in a row he’s had to ask the babysitter to stay late with Sam after school. Really, he should have known this was going to happen, shouldn’t have taken Chris’s enthusiastic reassurance of ‘you’ll catch up in no time buddy!’ at face value when he knows Chris tends to put an impossibly positive spin on most things.

So he’s working late again- only this time Sam’s babysitter can’t unexpectedly add three extra hours to her day. So Ben is having an unexpected, but entirely pleasant ‘bring your daughter to work day’.

Pleasant, that is, until he walks through the adjoining doors to make a copy and turns back to find Sam missing.

Ben’s running down a hall he’s never been down before, shouting ‘Sammy!’ every few seconds, and keeping his eyes peeled for light-brown hair at waist level when he turns the corner and runs into someone slightly taller with blonde hair.

“Shit!”

“Bad word, Daddy!”

“Samantha?”

Once he gets his bearings, Ben sees that the small woman is holding the hand of his tiny daughter. She looks fine, like she didn’t even realize she was missing at all actually, but he squats on his toes to look more closely, just in case.

“Sammy, what have I told you about wandering off without my permission? You scared me.” His tone is scolding, but he still reaches out with the flat of his palm to smooth the wrinkles in her shirt.

“Sorry, Daddy. I had to potty, so much.”

Ben lifts her onto his hip, sighs out the breath he’s been holding and finally looks at the woman who’s just let go of Sam’s hand.

“Sorry, who are you again? I mean, sorry I ran into you. But-”

“I’m Deputy Director Leslie Knope. I work in the parks department. You’re Ben Wyatt right? We met on Tuesday.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. First week. Thanks for staying with her,” Ben says while nodding at the girl in his arms.

“It’s no problem. I’m used to helping girls find their way, both physically and emotionally." When Ben raises his eyebrows she continues. "I'm a troop leader. The Pawnee Goddesses, have you heard of us?”

“Um, no.” Leslie looks slightly disappointed and Ben adds, “But we just moved here. Last week actually.”

“I know! Chris told me. In fact, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’ve been to any of Pawnee’s amazing parks yet.”

Ben shakes his head only slightly and Leslie continues.

“Oh! I know- I can give you a personal tour if you want. I know all the good picnic locations and the best swings for optimal fun-to-fear ratios and…”

“I wanna go to the park, Daddy!”

At Sam’s declaration, Leslie’s face lights up even more. He didn’t know that was possible. But five minutes ago he didn’t know it was possible for someone to be so passionate about city parks. Especially city parks run on a small town budget.

“Um,” Ben looks back and forth between two pairs of hopeful eyes before staying just on Sam’s. “Not today, Buttercup. Maybe this weekend?”

Ben feels a little weird accepting her offer, he hardly knows Leslie Knope after all, but something in him can’t turn her down either. Besides, he has been neglecting his father-daughter play time duties a little more often than he would like these past two weeks, and Sam does love when he pushes her in the swing…

“Great! How about Sunday? Around 7 AM?”

“Uh..”

“Or 8? If Sam needs to sleep longer than that. Why don’t you just email me? Or call me. Text? No, definitely email. Why don’t we just synchronize our watches and meet at the corner of Elm and Pine, I’ll wear a black hat-”

“No, it’s okay,” Ben cuts her off in the middle of her thought. Is she nervous now? Why would she be nervous? Her smile is tense and he’s just now noticing how tightly she’s twining her fingers together. In her pause of words, they both take a moment to look into each other’s eyes. It lasts a beat past professional. He doesn’t break eye contact until Leslie shifts her eyes up and down his body and smiles.

“Daddy, I have to potty,” Samantha whines, breaks him from his reverence.

“Sorry. So, 8 o’clock Sunday?”

“Meet me at the Ramsett Park playground.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Ben feels himself being pulled into her smile again, and he’s sure his lips are curved just as high until Sam whines again. Leslie waves and turns, says goodbye to Sam, and Ben feels like part of himself is weighted to the corner of that hallway even as he walks in the opposite direction.

/

It happens again on Sunday.

Leslie is already waiting for them at the playground by the time Sam and Ben arrive. She walks them around the whole park, but they end up spending most of their time at the swings (at Sam’s request). Ben pushes his daughter, gives her under-dogs and relishes her giggles as Leslie swings next to her.

They can’t bring the conversation above a 4-year-old level for more than a few sentences before Samantha brings the attention back to her, but they still learn a lot about each other.

Leslie learns that they moved here two weeks ago and that before Pawnee, they lived in Patridge for Sam’s whole life. Ben tells her what he tells everyone, it was easier to have his mom and his sister help him with Sam when she was younger, so he never saw any reason to leave. But he also tells her what he doesn’t usually say, that he was scared to really and truly do this on his own, be a father without the aid of his family. He’s still scared, but now the excitement outweighs that.

When they leave at dusk along different paths towards their cars, Ben feels another piece of himself left behind on the swings.

That night when Ben tucks his happily exhausted daughter into bed, she sleepily asks to ‘play with Leslie again tomorrow’. He tells her not tomorrow, but maybe soon, and promises her the future.

/

They go out the next weekend and it happens for a third time when Leslie shows them the zoo.

Sam takes Leslie’s hand halfway through the day and doesn’t let go until they separate in the parking lot, after Ben had already left a piece of himself embedded in the cement of the penguin pool.

Leslie tells him that last year she married two penguins that aren’t there anymore. He tells her it sounds cute and she smiles at him and they somehow end up talking about marriage. While Sam’s distracted by the penguin feeding time, Ben tells Leslie he never married Sam’s mom. He didn’t even know her really before she found out she was pregnant. He tells her he had no idea she’d leave when Sam was just two weeks old, but that Ben found out a lot about himself that first year.

It happens when Leslie finds Ben singing Samantha to sleep in the break room. They’re both working late again, it seems like Leslie never leaves City Hall. She walks through the door right as Ben finishes with ‘but only half as much as tomorrow’ and she smiles that smile that makes him instantaneously want to share everything with her.

And he does- while a corner of his heart stays mounted to the round, linoleum table forever.

/

Ben gives pieces of himself to Leslie even more as he watches her give pieces of herself to Samantha.

Sam requests 'play dates' with Leslie with increasing frequency as they become better and better friends. On the surface, Ben can understand why. Leslie must basically be like a cartoon character to his daughter, with her endless energy and boundless creativity. But he also knows Samantha- knows that she’s shy enough to only say a few words to his father and to even be reluctant to talk to his mother on the phone.

Yet he sees Samantha crawl into Leslie’s lap, not his, when they watch a movie in his living room one Friday night. Sam cups her hands over Leslie’s ear to whisper something Ben can’t hear. Leslie smiles and turns her head to do the same thing once Sam is done.

Leslie carries Sam to her room when the movie is over and they both tuck her into bed. Samantha tells Ben goodnight and whispers her ‘I love you’ with barely opened eyes, but holds out her arms for Leslie when he steps away.

Leslie hugs his daughter as she lies in bed and he hears Sam say ‘I love you, Leslie’ in that same sleepy voice, hears Leslie whisper it back and part of his heart stays sewn into the comforter of his daughter’s bed that night.

/

That same night is the first time Ben kisses Leslie.

They’re talking in the kitchen over their left-over cocoa when Ben tells Leslie he worries about Sam growing up without a mom.

“I mean, right now it’s fine. Even good, I think. She still wants me to go to her tea parties, and I always have the internet or my Mom or Steph to teach me things I don’t know. But in 10 years?”

Ben shakes his head a little and Leslie gives his arm a sympathetic squeeze.

“I don’t want to be just enough for her, you know? I want her to have better than enough.”

They pause for only a moment before Leslie speaks.

“My dad passed away when I was ten.”

Leslie starts to pull her hand from Ben’s arm, but he catches it. Twines their fingers.

“I don’t know that it mattered, in the end. I didn’t know any different, but I still think about it sometimes. I mean, I love my mom, but I just wonder what it would’ve been like. What it would be like, you know?”

They smile at each other, but this time both their eyes are dim with shared sadness. Ben’s running his thumb over the inside of Leslie’s wrist and she shivers. He’s pulling on her hand and threading his fingers through her hair without a thought, with an inevitability.

From the time Leslie held his daughter’s hand in the hallway of City Hall they’ve been exchanging pieces like barter for joy- and Ben can’t imagine a day where he wants to stop filling Leslie’s cup enough to brim over the edge. In this moment those pieces feel like magnets pulling them together, until it’s almost a relief when his lips touch hers and her mouth opens under his.

And the next fall, when Sam asks her mom to braid her hair before her first day of preschool, Ben watches Leslie tie pieces of her love into every strand, solidifying it with a clear elastic.


End file.
